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Italian white bread with semolina and wheat germ

Italian white bread with semolina and wheat germ

I came across this recipe in paper and thought it was worth a try, all the ingredients make this one a pocket full of flavour, which I am sure you will enjoy.

I try my best to explain where and why I deviated from the original recipe with bold and italic letters...

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Time to bake: ~ 1h15

Fermentation time: 18 hours sponge ( original ) // 13-14h my way

20 min , another 40 min ( original ) //30 min autolyse / 1h / 1h

for the final dough.

Makes 2 loaves

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Ingredients:

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500g bread flour

250g semolina

150ml(g) milk lukewarm

150ml(g) water lukewarm x2 = 300 ml

60g butter

50g Wheat germs

20g Malt // I used 30g barley malt syrup

10g live yeast = 3.3g dry yeast = 1.1 instant active dry yeast ( If I am correct, please recheck to be sure , i only use live yeast )

some olive oil

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The sponge:

Combine 250g bread flour, 5g of the yeast an 150ml of water to a smooth, pliable dough The recipe didnt specify, I mixed 10 min with my Kitchen Aid on setting 3. I knew in advance that 18h just would not work for me, so I added a teaspoon of sugar to accelerate the process a tiny bit and got away with around 14h. This is a rather small ammount of yeast, the time letting the sponge rest so long is well invested. It should double. I left it in a sealed plastic dough container at room temperature.

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The dough:
Mix the sponge with the rest of the bread flour, the semolina the wheat germ, the malt, the rest of the yeast with the milk and melted butter and salt. I melted the butter and added cold milk from the fridge which made the whole thing lukewarm. The recipe states to mix all the ingredients stated above and THEN add another 150ml of water after that, I thought that was rather silly, it is always harder to incorporate liquid into a dough later on than the other way around so I added the warm water with the milk and butter right away.

Knead the dough 10-12 minutes forceful with your hands on a counter well dusted with flour. This is a VERY sticky dough.

The original recipe states to oil up the dough and then let rest for only 20 min at a higher temperature in the oven. Being I worked with semolina before I knew it would take more time to absorb the water so I decided to let the dough autolyse for 30 min. Furthermore it makes it easier to shape the bread and gives more structure.

Much better after 30 min and still slightly sticky, but thats ok. knead again for 2,3 minutes. Instead of 20 min at higher temperature I decided to put oil on the surface as stated, but let the dough rest at room temperature for an hour

Divide the dough in 2 and roll it up on the counter, I am sure you can do better than I did.

Roll over the short edge into loafs:

Let the end be on top like in the picture this way you have the flour on the upside later on. The original states 20 min proofing time. I gave it another hour, covered with a moist towel

The bread will rise a decent ammount, at this point I thought I should maybe have rolled it up much flatter...maybe next time.

Baking:

Bake for 10 minutes at 250Celsius/485 Fahrenheit thend turn down to 190/375. Depending on your oven you might want to keep it open for a few seconds,

250 is rather hot and the bread turned dark very quickly.

I cheated with the flour afterwards abit. I didnt have enough down on the counter when rolling up, I always find it hard to make make rolled up bread like that stick together if you use to much flour, I forgot to add on top before putting it into the oven :(

Here the crust/crumb shot while still cooling off:

Resume:

I will definilty be making this again, the long fermentation adds suprising taste for "just" a yeast bread. The wheat germ adds a slightly nutty taste along with the texture of the semolina this is a very good bread. When I had a taste while it still was a bit warm it almost tasted a bit like a panini. I have seen much more ammount of enrichments in other breads, with quite less taste. I do hope, that if you try this you will enjoy every bite of it.

I used a teaspoon of seasalt, but next time I will be using a tablespoon due to the malt. The shape, I was a bit worried about that, but the dough is soft if you start rolling up over the short edge with a bit of pressure, the end result is just what you see in the pictures, the dough will flatten out more and more making the beginning of what you started with wider and wider. Use less pressure at the end and you will wind up with this shape, if you use a lot of flour, and the dough is somewhat sticky you can brush a bit of warm water on the topside so it will be cohesive. I hope it turns out well for you !

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